Dick Butler (DB) has test flown Concordia and is delighted with the ship’s handling. In June and July, Dick will be busy flight testing, tuning the glider, and practicing for this summer’s WGC in Uvalde, TX. He has limited time to provide updates; however, the Café will post an occasional photo as flight testing proceeds. … Read more
We hope you enjoy these higher resolution videos of Concordia’s first and second takeoff and landing. The videos were recorded by Soaring Café Publishing Editor Bill Elliott, who used a camcorder generously loaned to us for the occasion by Jackie Perry. Thanks Jackie!
The Café thanks Antonio Gemma More for these two beautiful photos of Concordia on tow at William Northern Field in Tullahoma, Tennessee. Antonio is a mechanical engineer and professional photographer.
After Dick’s second test flight in Concordia on May 25th, we interviewed him (still in the cockpit) and his wife and lifelong crew, Sarah. Tow pilot Ted Beckwith and Soaring Café Publishing Editor Bill Elliott also appear in the video. We apologize for the wind noise in the second clip. Unfortunately, we didn’t have our … Read more
Here’s a video of Concordia’s first test flight on May 25, 2012. We’ve also included several photos that didn’t make it into our May 25th post. We apologize for the quality of the in-flight photos, which were extracted from a video taken from the tow plane. As anyone who’s tried air-to-air photography knows all too … Read more
We are delighted to report that on Friday, May 25, 2012, at approximately 9:00 AM CDT, Dick Butler successfully completed the first test flight of Concordia. With his wife Sarah running the wing, DB launched from runway 18 at William Northern Field in Tullahoma, Tennessee and made a short tow to verify that the controls … Read more
On the way home last Saturday from the U.S. Team Training Camp at Chilhowee, Tennessee, your editors made a detour to Dick Butler’s workshop. We found Dick and Christian Streifeneder hard at work on the Concordia. Dick and his collaborators have been putting in very long days to get Concordia ready for flight testing this spring. With the World Championships in Uvalde, Texas only three months away, they have no time to waste.
This winter, Chris Woodward has been a regular in Dick’s workshop, applying a lightweight plastic film called SolarTrim to Concordia’s control surfaces. Last weekend, we interviewed Chris and asked him to explain the process and the rationale for using SolarTrim rather than gel coat or paint.
During our visit to Dick Butler’s workshop on February 19th, Dick graciously accepted our request for an interview. He talks about the status of the project and a few of the many remaining items that have to be tackled before Concordia debuts on the world stage in July.
If you’ve been following the Concordia reports here in the Café, you know that Heinz Weissenbuehler and his team at M & H Soaring spent about six weeks finishing the fuselage at their workshop in Elmira, New York. Like all of you, Bill and I had seen photos of the finished fuselage, but when we saw and touched (nee caressed) the fuselage in Dick’s shop last weekend, we were blown away by the quality of the finish. I’ve never seen another sailplane with a finish that matched Concordia’s. Heinz and his staff did an extraordinary job on the fuselage. The photos and videos below don’t begin to do it justice.